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SEE WHAT YOU DRINK. 
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ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS, 



WITH 



A DESCRIPTION 



OF THE 



Poisons Used in their Manufacture. 



By 
OLIVER COTTER, 

A REFORMED LIQUOR DEALER, OF BROOKLYN, N. Y. 






,mJ.i$37rt'- 



A. S. BARNES & CO., 

New- York. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S74, by 

OLIVER COTTER, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



The laws of health are the laws of God, and as binding 
on men as the Decalogue. — Willard Parker, M.D., 
President Academy of Medicine. 

Among the evil institutions that threaten the integrity 
and safety of a State, the liquor traffic stands preeminent. — 
Hon. John Bright. 

If alcohol were unknown, half the sin, and a large part 
of the poverty and unhappiness of this world, would 
disappear.— Prof. Edmund H. Parks, M.D., F.R.S. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The following pages have been compiled 
from the writings and lectures of the most 
celebrated chemists, physicians, and physiolo- 
gists of the present age, together with the 
experience of the author as a liquor dealer for 
seven years past. 

The writer believes that the true way to 
promote the temperance cause is to kindly 
and truthfully teach the people the true na- 
ture of alcoholic beverages, and to expose the 
system of adulterations and frauds that are 
practiced to such an alarming extent by the 
dealers. 

With the hope that this treatise may help to 
check the swelling tide of intemperance that 
threatens to overwhelm our country, it is re 
spectfully submitted to all classes of society. 

OLIVER COTTER. 

Brooklyn, 1874. 



Adulteration of Liquors. 



-♦-♦-^ 



WINE. 

The practice of drugging wines is of very 
ancient date. Homer, who lived one thousand 
years before Christ, makes frequent mention of 
the very potent drugs that were mixed with 
wines. 

In the Odyssey, lib. IV. 220, he tells us that 
Helen prepared for Telemachus and his com- 
panions a beverage which was highly stupe- 
factive. This art she learned from the Egyp- 
tians. The Hebrews, as we learn from Scrip- 
ture, were in the habit of using mixed wines, 
wines made inebriating by the use of spices, 
myrrh, mandragora, opiates, and other strong 
drugs ; yea, many have supposed the inha- 
bitants of the Old World were experts in the 
whole system of drugging and adulterating 
wines, and that one of the abominations which 



8 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 

drew down upon them the wrath of heaven, 
was that of drunkenness. 

Pliny, in Chapter i6 of Book XIV., gives 
a long list of drugs and spices and fruits from 
which wines were made. 

Virgil, after enumerating various descriptions 
of wine, cuts short the subject by saying, that 
it was impossible to number the various species 
of wine then in use, and that to attempt it 
would be as hopeless a task as to tell the sands 
of the Lybian coasts which the we'st wind 
agitates, or the waves of the Ionian Sea which 
are rolled to the shore. 

During the reign of Edward III., in the 
fourteenth century, a law was enacted in Eng- 
land, imposing heavy penalties on frauds on 
liquors. That same monarch, in a letter to the 
Mayor of London, complains of the wine 
merchants, " they do mingle corrupt wines with 
other wines, and are not afraid to sell the wines 
so mixed and corrupt at the same price as they 
sell the good and pure, to the corruption of the 
bodily health of those who buy wines by 
retail." 

Addison, in his Tatler^ No. 131, says that, 
in his time, 17 10, there was a certain fraternity 
of chemical operators who wrought under- 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 9 

ground, in holes, caverns, and dark retirements, 
to conceal their mysteries from the eyes and 
observation of mankind. 

These subterraneous philosophers are daily 
employed in the transmutation of liquors, and 
by the power of magical drugs and incantations, 
raise, under the streets of London, the choicest 
products of the hills and valleys of France. 
They squeeze Bordeaux out of the sloe, and 
draw champagne from an apple. 

Virgil, in that remarkable line, 

"The ripening grape shall hang on every thorn," 

seems to have hinted at this art, which turns a 
plantation of modern hedges into a vineyard. 

These adepts are known among one another 
by the name of wine-brewers, and I am afraid 
do great injury to the bodies of many of her 
majesty's good subjects. 

For example, take champagne wine. The 
United States are reported to be the largest 
consumers of this kind in the world, that of 
1 ,000,000 baskets. Now, let us remember that 
the whole Champagne district is about 20,000 
acres, and the amount of wines manufactured 
for exportation is 10,000,000 bottles, or about 
800,000 baskets. Of this, Russia consumes 



lO ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 

160,000; France, 162,000; Germany, 146,000; 
England, 220,000 — leaving only 120,000 for the 
United States ; which proves that 888,000 bas- 
kets of wine drank in this country for imported 
champagne are counterfeit — an amount more 
than equal to the whole supply of the Cham- 
pagne district for the world. 

Take that of madeira. Dr. Nott states, on 
reliable authority, that but 30,000 barrels of 
wine were produced on the island of Madeira, 
and yet 50,000 are claimed to be front there 
drank in America alone. 

Take that of port wines. According to the 
custom-house books of Oporto, for one year, 
135 pipes and 20 hogsheads were shipped for 
Germany ; yet in the same year there were 
landed at the London docks 2545 pipes and 
162 hogsheads from that island, reported to be 
port wine. Whence come the additions ? In 
France, there are many thousand hogsheads of 
wine exported annually, more than all the 
vineyards can possibly yield. There is more 
what is called port wine drank in London 
alone than all the port-wine growers in the 
world can produce, and yet London supplies 
the whole civilized world. 

From the report of the Commissioners of 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. II 

the Internal Revenue system, made in 1866, we 
learn that four firms in the city of New- York 
reported to the commissioners a consumption 
of 225,000 gallons of pure spirits for the manu- 
facture of imitation wines. 

As about twenty per cent is the proportion 
of spirits used, we have from four firms alone 
nearly 2,000,000 gallons of this death-dealing 
mixture palmed off for consumption. Con- 
ceive, if you can, the whole amount manu- 
factured in these United States, when there 
are probably not less than three hundred firms 
engaged in the debasing traffic. - 

Prof C. A. Lee, of New- York, says : " A 
cheap madeira is made here by extracting the 
oils from common whisky, and by passing it 
throusfh carbon. There are immense estab- 
lishments in this city where the whisky is thus 
turned into wine. In some of those devoted 
to this branch of business, the whisky is rolled 
in the evening, but the wine goes in the broad 
daylight, ready to defy the closest inspection." 

A grocer, after he had abandoned the nefa- 
rious traffic, assured me that he had often pur- 
chased whisky one day of a country merchant, 
and before he left town sold the same whisky 



12 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 

back to him, turned into wine, at a profit of 
from four to five hundred per cent. 

This metamorphosis is not even excelled by 
the French wine merchant who said : " Give me 
six hours' notice of what wine you like, and you 
shall have it out of those two barrels." 

Let us ascertain what it is that man drinks 
when he takes a glass of wine. On the testi- 
mony of Accum, one well qualified to speak, 
evidence sufficient has accumulated to show 
that few of those commodities which 'are the 
objects of commerce are adulterated to a 
greater extent than wines. We have testi- 
monies the most unquestionable, that modern 
wines are manufactured and adulterated to an 
awful extent. The Vi7itners Guide and The 
Wi7ie'Mercha7ii s Companion furnish the most 
shocking directions on this subject, and any 
one who desires to learn more than we can give 
in this article on the ingredients that enter into 
the composition of those fabrications called 
wines, so obligingly prepared in those garrets 
and cellars of our large cities, where fraud 
under ground finds protection, and wholesale 
deeds of darkness are securely and systemati- 
cally performed, and no less obligingly supplied 
from the brew-houses of foreign lands, will do 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 1 3 

well to consult M. P. Orfila, on poisons, and 
Mr. Frederick Accum, on coloring poisons. 

We will enumerate some of the ingredients 
and the object sought for in the adulterations. 

To brighten, color, clear, and make astrin- 
gent wines, alum, Brazil-wood, gypsum, oak saw- 
dust, husks of filbert, and lead are employed ; 
and for the purpose of communicating particu- 
lar flavor to insipid wines, bitter almond, 
cherry-laurel water. In the Isle of Sheppey, 
many persons are employed in picking up 
copperas stones from the sea-beach, which 
being taken to a manufactory, copperas is ex- 
tracted, and then shipped to Oporto, to be sold 
to the wine-dresser and wine-merchant, and by 
them is mixed with the port wine to give it a 
particular astringent quality. 

It is but recently that a writer, noways 
favorable to abstinence, but one who ought to 
know, said, in an article on adulterated wines : 
" We know very well that the Spaniard would 
not touch the wine he manufactures for us, and 
the Portuguese would spit out our port like so 
much poison. What a humiliating thoughi 
that Americans greedily swallow what the Por- 
tuguese spit out as poison !" 

In answer to certain questions, Dr. Cox, the 



14 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 

celebrated chemist and inspector of liquors for 
Ohio, mentions the following as the composi- 
tions of all the port wine he had inspected that 
spring : " As a basis, either water, cider vinegar, 
or a mixture of water and sulphuric acid, with 
the juice of elder-berries, privet-berries, beet- 
root juice and logwood, with alum, technically 
called sulphate of alumina and potassa, sugar 
to cover the pernicious mixtures, and some- 
times I found one or two per cent of Jamaica 
rum or neutral spirits added." 

Of sherry, madeira, muscatel, etc., he says 
they are all — or at least all that he has inspect- 
ed — either mixed or have as a basis water, cider, 
wort, made of pale malt, or a mixture of sul- 
phuric acid and water to the acidity of weak 
vinegar, with brown sugar, honey, orris-root, and 
neutral spirits to give it alcoholic percentages ; 
and this, he adds, was the character of two sam- 
ples of wines, port and sherry, that he inspected, 
which were sent from a store, the proprietors 
of which are honorable and high-minded gen- 
tlemen, who had paid a high price for their 
liquors, got them out of the custom-house in 
an Eastern city, with an assurance that they 
were genuine and imported, and yet there was 
not one drop or symptom of wine in either of 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 1 5 



them — the one having its warming, stimulating 
influence from sulphuric acid and one per 
cent Jamaica rum ; and the sherry having six 
per cent alcoholic spirits imparted to it by 
neutral spirits, with sulphuric acid, bitter 
almonds, brown sugar, and honey. 

These abominable mixtures are flavored 
with various oils to suit the flavors of different 
wines : oil of lavender, cloves, cinnamon, berga- 
mot, rosemary, etc. etc. 

At an examination made by this same Dr. 
Cox, in the presence of Professor Wilson, of 
Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa., he found in 
one article of wine purporting to be the pure 
wine of grape, and which had been used for sa- 
cramental purposes, the following: eight per 
cent alcoholic spirit or rye whisky, muriatic 
acid, alum, sugar, elder-berries or flowers, which 
impart a flavor very analogous to the grape ; and 
in a sample of pale sherry, so called, belonging 
to one of the professors of that college, and 
purchased by him at a high price from an im- 
porting-house of New- York city, and for medi- 
cal purposes, there was not a drop of the juice 
of the grape, but an abundance of sulphuric 
acid, prussic acid, alum, and other ingredients 



l6 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 

to give bouquet and aroma to that rascall}' and 
poisonous imitation. 

Query : Was this the medicinal wine ordered 
by Paul for Timothy's weak stomach, and often 
infirmities ? Accum says, many thousands of 
pipes of spoiled cider are annually brought 
hither from the country, for the purpose of 
being converted Into fictitious wine ; artisans 
are regularly employed in staining and crust- 
ing casks and bottles, and making an astrin- 
gent extract for old port. 

Mr. Cyrus Redding, celebrated as an author 
who has written much on the subject of wine, 
in the description he gave before the Select 
Committee of the House of Commons, of the 
mode by which wines are manufactured in 
London, stated that brandy cowe — that is, wash- 
ings of brandy-casks — coloring made of elder- 
berries, logwood, salt of tartar, green dragon, 
tincture of red sanders or cudbear, were exten- 
sively used in preparing an article which sells 
as port. The entire export of port wine, he 
added, is 20,000 pipes, and yet 60,000, as given 
in evidence, are annually consumed In this 
country. 

Rev. Dr. Baird, in his visit to the vineyards 
of Spain and France, says brandy is always 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 1/ 

added to the finest sherries on their shipment, 
because strength is one of the first quahtles 
looked for by the consumer. Again, in no case 
do exporters send a genuine natural wine — that 
is, a wine as it comes from the vat — without a 
mixture of other qualities. 

The Wine Guide gives directions to put a 
quart of warm sheep's or lamb s blood into a 
butt of sherry to take off the color. The same 
book gives directions to wine merchants for 
clearing cloudy or musty wine with litharge or 
sugar of lead. Dr. Nott says : " A friend of 
mine informed me that, having been induced to 
purchase a cask of port wine by the fact that it 
had just been received direct from Oporto by a 
house in New- York, in the honor and integrity 
of which entire confidence could be placed, he 
drew off and bottled up and secured with his own 
hands its precious contents, to be reserved for 
the special use of friends ; and that having done 
so, and having thereafter occasion to cause that 
cask to be sawed in two, he found, to his astonish- 
ment, that its lees consisted of a large quantity 
of the shavings of logwood, a residuum of 
alum and other ingredients, the name and na- 
ture of which were to him unknown. In reply 
to a question put by the same authority to a 



1 8 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 

friend who had himself been a wine dealer, as 
to the verity of the startling statements then 
published with reference to wine-brewing, this 
response was made : " God forgive what has 
passed in my own cellar, but the statements 
made are true, all true, I assure you." Another 
friend, who had been the executor of a wine 
dealer, assured him that, in the inventory of arti- 
cles for the manufacture found in the cellar of 
that dealer, and which amounted to many thou- 
sand dollars, there was not one dollar for the 
juice of the grape. And still another friend 
informed him that, in examining, as an assignee, 
the papers of a house in the city which dealt 
in wines, and which had stopped payment, he 
found evidence of the purchase, during the pre- 
ceding years, of hundreds of casks of cider, but 
no wine, which had been supposed to have been 
dealt out by that house to its confiding custom- 
ers. A gentleman who had once been largely 
engaged in the manufacture of spurious wines, 
and who in one year sold 30,000 casks, stated 
to Mr. Delevan that few persons who drink 
wine had any conception of what they drink. 
Frauds committed in the city of New- York 
alone amount, it is supposed, to $8,000,000 an- 
nually. A cargo of wine arrives in New- York ; 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 1 9 

it IS at once purchased up, and if fictitious, in 
twenty-four hours its whole character is chang- 
ed. To effect this, it is emptied into large vats, 
and then mixed with whisky, cider, sour beer, 
and drugs. One of the most poisonous ingre- 
dients which these adulterators use is lead ; 
this appears to have been rather an old practice. 
In the year 1696, several persons in the Duchy 
of Wlirtemberg were poisoned in consequence 
of drinkino; wine adulterated with white lead. 
A disease called the lead colic raged in Poitou 
in the sixteenth century, for upward of sixty 
years, and is now well known to have been 
occasioned by the abominable adulterations of 
wine with lead. In 1811, all the passengers of 
the Highflyer coach who dined and drank wine 
at Newcastle, January 1 7th, were taken ill with 
extreme sickness, and one gentleman, who had 
taken more wine than the rest, was brought al- 
most to the grave ; and another, who had drank 
some negus which was made from the very 
wine, was taken ill soon after, and actually died 
before medical aid arrived, and on the inquest 
being held, the jury returned a verdict of died 
of poiso7i. 

In the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical 
Journal, Vol. XXIII., page 67, there is the fol- 



20 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 

lowing case : " The family of a baronet in Rox- 
burghshire, toQ:ether with several visitors, were 
taken seriously ill during dinner, or soon after 
it ; the symptoms in all were sickness, vomit- 
ing, and diarrhoea. In the course of the night, 
all were afflicted with a sense of heat in the sto- 
mach, throat, and mouth, and in the morning 
the lips became incrusted, and in the matter 
vomited the two hundred and fiftieth part of a 
grain of arsenic was discovered, and in the re- 
mains of a bottle of champagne, two ounces of 
wine gave one grain and a quarter of sulphate of 
arsenic." How true it is that few persons who 
drink wine have any conception of what they 
drink. So one gentleman, according to the testi- 
mony of Mr. Delevan, thought, who purchased 
in this city a bottle of what w^as called genuine 
champagne of the importer, and found it to con- 
tain one quarter of an ounce of sugar of lead. 
Merchants, I know, persuade themselves that the 
minute quantity employed to cause the acid 
taste in wine is perfectly harmless. But chem- 
ical analysis proves the contrary, and it must be 
pronounced highly deleterious. Lead, in what- 
ever state it is taken into the stomach, occasions 
terrible disease, and wine adulterated with the 
minutest quantity of it becomes a slow poison. 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 21 

Such being the case, does not the merchant or 
dealer who practices this dangerous sophistica- 
tion add to the crime of fraud that of murder ; 
and is he not dehberately sowing the seeds of 
disease and death among those who contribute 
to his emolument ? We know that much has 
been said about the pure wines of Ohio and 
California, the sparkling Catawba and Isabella ; 
and those who advocate their use may really 
believe they are the pure juice of the grape — at 
least they know that the manufacturers of such 
wines raise whole acres of grapes, which is good 
prhna facie evidence that grapes are what they 
make wine of This reminds us of one who 
gave a receipt for making bear's-grease : after 
telling how it is made, in which there is no 
more of the bear than in the wines now drank, 
he remarks : " It would be well to keep a bear 
on the premises, so that the people would think 
it was bear's-grease." Sure enough ; it is well to 
raise grapes alias to exhibit the bear. When, 
then, we know that the wines now current are 
really a mess of drugs, a concoction of vile 
compounds, does not the medical prescription 
of wines partake of the rankest quackery } 

Here not only have we the liquor-dealer 
constituted the apothecary, and the doses left to 



22 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 

be regulated by the appetite of the patient, 
but the true composition and strength of the 
drinks prescribed are quite unknown to the pre- 
scriber. 

The London Times^ which can not be accused 
of fanaticism on the subject, says : " As a rule, 
medical men know no more of the value of wine 
as a medicinal agent than any body else. A 
glass of sherry is their universal panacea for 
want of tone in the system ; but sherry may 
mean any thing but the thing it is really called. 
It is a great pity the faculty do not pay as much 
attention to wine as a medicament as they do to 
water. We are told there is some spa suitable 
to every complaint the human frame is liable to; 
but port and sherry are all the wines the majo- 
rity of physicians prescribe or recommend to 
their patients when special restoratives are 
required." When physicians prescribe wine for 
their patients, ought they not to ascertain 
whether what they order is the product of the 
sun in the vineyard, or of applied chemistry in 
the laboratory } 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 23 



BRANDY, RUM, GIN, WHISKY. 

We asked a physician the other day, who 
had just written a prescription for one of his 
patients, what it was he had ordered. " Just a 
Httle cognac brandy," he rephed, so called from 
the village of Cognac, on the river Charente, in 
the kingdom of France. On the strength of 
her physician's testimony, the poor invalid ima- 
gined, as thousands of others have blindly be- 
lieved, that she was using a drink distilled from 
grapes, ignorant of the fact that not one per cent 
of all the liquor sold as brandy in this country 
is real brandy ; that we pay the French distillers 
at Lyons and Marseilles, saying nothing of half 
a hundred other places on the European con- 
tinent and our own, to make our corn whiskies 
into fine old brandies. In proof of this, we have 
just to refer to the various receipt-books which 
spirit dealers, as well as wine merchants and 
brewers, have, containing specific directions for 
the manufacture and adulterations of liquor. 

For example, in the Vmhters Guide, to im- 
prove the flavor of brandy : A quarter of an 
ounce of Eno^lish saffron and half an ounce of 



24 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 

mace, steeped in a pint of brandy for ten days, 
shaking it once or twice a day, then strain it 
through Hnen cloth, and add one ounce of terra 
japonica, finely powdered, and three ounces of 
spirits of nitre ; put it into ten gallons of brandy, 
adding at the same time ten pounds of prunes, 
bruised. To give new brandy all the qualities 
of old : To one gallon of new brandy, add thirty 
drops of aqua ammonia (volatile smelling li- 
quor), shaking it well that it may combine with 
the acid on which the taste and other'qualities 
of the new liquor depend." Lacour, the cele- 
brated manufacturer of oils for making and fla- 
voring every variety of liquors, offers his guide- 
book, containing directions for making cider 
without apples, and for converting cider into 
all kinds of white wines, champagne, etc., and 
a package of the article used for giving strength 
to liquors, converting seventy gallons of whisky 
into one hundred gallons, and every article 
necessary to commence a liquor-store, will be 
furnished for ^25 (very moderate), also all the 
information necessary to conduct such an esta- 
blishment, thus enabling the new beginner to 
compete successfully with the oldest liquor 
dealer. This Lacour's oil of cognac is warrant- 
ed to convert neutral spirit to a superior imita- 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 2$ 

tion of imported brandies — namely, Otard, 
Sazerat, Marretti, Cognac, Martel, Hennessy, 
Renault, Castillon, and London Dock brandies. 
These liquors will have a full, fruity flavor, 
and a beautiful sparkling color, etc. 

So much for the books ; now for the produc- 
tions. What it really was that that patient may 
have been prescribed to drink we shall see. In 
reply to the question, " Have you reason to be- 
lieve that imported wines and brandies are 
adulterated .^" put to Dr. Cox, the inspector of 
liquors for Ohio, he says : " Yes, I know them to 
be, and can demonstrate the fact to any one 
who has faith in chemical developments. I have 
inspected brands of various kinds and qualities 
fresh from the custom-house, with the inspector's 
certificate which accompanied them, and was 
assured that they were freshly imported ; and 
yet the chemical tests gave me corn whisky, 
with abundance of fusel oil, or the oil of corn, 
as a basis, with sulphuric acid, nitric ether, prus- 
sic acid, copper, chloroform, Guinea pepper, 
tannin or tannic acid, with sometimes a very 
small percentage of good brandy, and frequent- 
ly not a drop. The same gentleman says : " A 
gentleman of veracity in Cincinnati, a druggist, 
that he might have a pure liquor as a medicinal 



26 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 

article, and that kind of purity, etc., that he 
could recommend to his customers, went to 
New- York and purchased two half pipes of 
splendid Seignette brandy — one pale, the other 
dark. When passing one day, he called me in 
to see his beautiful pure brandy, just from New- 
York. I stopped, looked at it, smelled it ; but 
before tasting it, happening to have some blue 
litmus-paper in my pocket, I introduced a small 
piece ; it came out red as scarlet. I then called 
for a polished spatula, put it into a tunibler con- 
taining perhaps half a gill, and waited on it per- 
hajDS fifteen minutes, at the expiration of which 
the liquor was black as ink. The spatula cor- 
roded, and when dried, a thick coating or rust, 
which, when wiped off, left a copper coat almost 
as thick as if it had been plated. I charged 
him on the spot, under the penalty of the law, 
not to sell a drop of it ; took samples of it to 
my office, and the following is the result of my 
analysis : ist sample, dark, 55 per cent alcoholic 
spirits by volume, and 41 per cent by weight; 
specific gravity, 0.945. The tests indicate sul- 
phuric acid, nitric acid, nitric ether, prussic acid, 
Guinea pepper, and an abundance of fusel oil, 
bare common whisky, not a drop of wine. 
2d sample, pale, 54 per cent alcoholic spirits by 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 2/ 

volume, 40 per cent by weight; specific gravity, 
0.955. This article has the same adulterations 
as the first, but in greater abundance, with the 
addition of caoutchouc. 

Remark : Most villainous concoctions ; of 
course these articles could not be sold without 
a violation of the liquor law, consequently the 
chemist condemned them. They were pur- 
chased on four months' time. The purchaser 
immediately notified the New- York merchant 
of the character and quality of the goods, and 
directed him to send for them ; but instead of 
sending for them, he waited till the notes be- 
came due, and brought the suit into the Court 
of Common Pleas (Cincinnati). The chemist 
analyzed the liquors in the presence of the 
court and jury, showed them satisfactorily that 
they were the pernicious, poisonous, and vil- 
lainous liquors which he had represented them 
to be, and the defendant gained his case 
triumphantly, and the New-York merchant 
vanished before a state warrant could be got 
out; otherwise he would have had ample time 
allowed him to learn an honest trade at one of 
the State institutions in Columbus. 



28 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 



RUM. 

With this liquor, supposed to be a simple 
distillation of the sugar-cane, some adultera- 
tions are carried on. The impositions prac- 
ticed with rum generally consist in purchasing 
low-priced Leeward Island rum, and by the 
introduction of such articles as the following, 
in certain proportions, it is sold as fine old 
Jamaica rum of peculiar softness and flavor : 
ale, porter, shrub, extract of orris-root, cherry- 
laurel water, extract of grains of paradise, or 
capsicum. 

GIN. 

According to the guide for distillation and 
brewinof, the list of ins^redients used in the 
manufacture of gin is truly startling. The 
articles are as follows : oil of vitriol, oil of cas- 
sia, oil of turpentine, oil of caraway, oil of 
juniper, oil of alm.ond, sjulphuric ether, extract 
of capsicum, extract of grains of paradise, ex- 
tract of orris-root, extract of angelica-root, 
water, sugar, etc. 

Dr. Sherman, of London, says : " Holland 
gin has been poisoned by lead. I detected an 
extensive adulteration of smuggled gin, which 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 29 

had been sold by an excise officer and dispers- 
ed over an extensive tract of country, and 
which committed great ravages among the in- 
habitants." 

WHISKY. 

/ , 

f The tune was when this Hquor could be 

had in its purity. When the whiskies of Scot- 
land and Ireland got their reputation, they 
were the products of one thousand illicit stills, 
scattered through the hills and bogs of those 
lands. Then the liquor was made by men who 
disdained to do any thing worse than cheat the 
ganger. They prided themselves on the skill 
of their brewing, and did not know the mean- 
ing of doctoring. That day has gone by ; the 
illicit stills are almost extirpated, and the mak- 
ing of Scotch and Irish whiskies is in the hands 
of large distillers. 

The principle of dressing, as it is termed, is 
about the same as that followed in gin, with the 
exception of getting that smoky taste, which is 
supposed to be a certain part of a good Scotch 
or Irish whisky, and that is produced by the 
introduction of creasote, which is a deadly 
poison. The same drugging process is carried 

on with bourbon and rye whiskies. * Most of 

J 



30 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 

our readers remember the excitement created, 
a few years ago, all over our Western country, 
from the large number of hogs that died from 
some malignant disease, particularly in the 
State of Ohio. The disease was called the 
Hog Cholera, Soon the discovery was made 
that the disease was confined to the distillers 
and their immediate neighbors. It was also 
noticed that the fish in some streams on 
the banks of which distilleries were located, 
died in large numbers, manifesting 'all the 
symptoms of intoxication or poisoning by nux- 
vomica. Finally, the swill of the distilleries 
was analyzed, and the presence of strychnine 
discovered. This at once accounted for the 
fatality among the hogs and fish. At first, the 
distillers were very indignant ; but seeing the 
thing could not be hid, afterward acknowledged 
that they used the drug to aid them In obtain- 
ing more spirits out of the same quantity of 
corn. Physicians say that since the introduc- 
tion of strychnine, etc., in the manufacture of 
whisky. It has become impossible to cure deli- 
rium tremens. " One day," Dr. Cox says, " I 
called at a groceryrStore where liquor also was 
kept ; a couple of Irishmen came In while I was 
there and called for some whisky, and the first 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 3 1 

drank, and the moment he drank the tears 
flowed freely, while he at the same time caught 
his breath, like one suffocated or strangling ; 
when he could speak, he says to his companion, 
' Och, Michael, but this is a warming to the 
stomach !' Michael drank, and went through like 
contortions, with the remark, ' Wouldn't it be 
foine in a could, frosty morning ?' After they 
had drank, I asked the landlord to pour me out 
a little in a tumbler, in which I dropped a slip 
of litmus-paper, which was no sooner wet than 
it put on a scarlet hue. I went to my office, and 
got my instruments and examined it. I found 
it had 1 7 per cent alcoholic spirits by weight, 
when it should have 40 per cent to be proof, 
and the difference in percentage made up by 
sulphuric acid, red pepper, pellitory, caustic 
potassa, benzine, and one of the salts of nucis 
vomicce, commonly called nux vomica. One 
pint of such liquor would kill the strongest 
man. I had the manufacturer indicted ; but 
by such villainy he had become wealthy, and I 
never have, owing to some defect in the laws, 
been able to brino^ that case to a iinal issue." 

The amount of adulterated liquors is enor- 
mous. ; and, with a few exceptions, the entire 
liquor traffic of the world is not only a fraud, 



32 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 

but (perhaps without all of the dealers being 
aware of the fact) it also amounts to a system 
of drugging and poisoning. 
^ The business of making adulterated liquors 
has been so simplified that any novice who 
knows enough to make a punch or a cocktail 
can learn in a short time how to make any 
kind of liquor that will pass muster with nine 
tenths of the drinking community. The oils 
and essences are within the reach of any dealer, 
wholesale or retail, and with the chemical 
preparations he can procure the directions for 
making a large or small quantity in a short 
time. 

If the oils, essences, and other chemical 
preparations are wanted for converting corn 
whisky into any other kind of liquor, they can 
easily be obtained. You can procure brandy- 
oil enough to change eight barrels of corn 
whisky into eight barrels of French brandy for 
$i6, and enough chemicals to convert sixteen 
barrels into Holland gin, London cordial gin, 
Old Tom gin, or schnapps, for $ 1 2,y 

To make old bourbon or rye and wheat 
whisky, enough of these chemical compounds 
can be purchased for ^8 to make four barrels ; 
and to make four barrels of Irish or Scotch 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 33 

whisky, the chemical materials can be procured 
for $10. 

Then there is the cost of the coloring matter, 
and what the dealers call age and body prepa- 
ration. By using these drugs, new whisky is 
converted into any kind of liquor of any age 
or color in a short time. Some of these 
materials are known to be deadly poisons. 
The more highly the imitation liquor can be 
charged with the cheap poisonous drugs, to 
supply the intoxicating properties of alcohol, 
the more water can be added, thus reducing 
the cost and keeping up the intoxicating power 
of the liquor. These preparations can be 
procured in any quantity. A small retailer can 
purchase a small quantity sufficient to convert 
a gallon or two of whisky into brandy, gin, or 
rum, as his daily wants may require, but they 
are generally used for larger quantities. 

In addition to the foregoing, there are an 
immense number of receipts for making all 
kinds of intoxicating liquors. From various 
authentic sources, I have procured a large 
number of these, which have been made use of 
at different times, and are in use now. 



34 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 



MALT LIQUORS. 

It is absolutely frightful to contemplate the 
lists of poisons and drugs with which malt 
liquors are doctored. Respecting porter, ac- 
cording to several books published for the use 
of brewers (see Child's Art of Brewing), there 
are used opium, henbane, capsicum, cocculus 
indicus, salt of tartar, headings, ginger, and 
slaked lime. The heading is a mixture of 
half alum and half copperas, ground to a fine 
powder, and is so called from giving to porter 
that beautiful head of froth which constitutes 
one of the peculiar properties of porter, and 
which landlords are so anxious to raise to 
gratify their customers. Besides these named, 
aloes, quassia, gentian, sweet-scented flag, worm- 
wood, hoarhound, bitter oranges, and that most 
abominable of all abominations, and a deadly 
poison, tobacco, are used to supply the place of 
hops. In England, a few years ago, public 
attention was strongly called to this, and the 
result was some terrible revelations as to what 
the intelligent British public had been swallow- 
ing. It was found that salt, molasses, sulphate 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 35 

of iron, gentian, quassia, chamomile, ginger, 
coriander, paradise-seed, alum, sulphuric acid, 
capsicum, cocculus indicus, tobacco, opium, 
and strychnine, were component parts of the 
different specimens of porter and ale obtained 
from various beer-shops through the city of 
London. 

In an English book, called Brewing Malt 
Liquors, by one Morrice, various of the arti- 
cles already named are unblushingly recom- 
mended for brewing malt liquors, and for im- 
proving them after they are brewed ; but the 
drugging does not cease with the brewer, the 
liquors are often doctored by the retailers. 
One case in point : less than a year ago, some 
dissipated men and women were drinking ale 
and porter in a dram-shop in Hull, England. 
The landlord had occasion to leave the shop, 
when one of the women, seeing on the counter 
a pitcherful of what she supposed was porter, 
drank a good draft, replacing the pitcher. In 
a very short time she was seized with nausea 
and griping pains, and fell down on the floor 
in a state of hopeless stupor and intoxication. 
In this state, she was conveyed to the hospital, 
where the contents of the stomach being 
evacuated, she was rescued from being poison- 



36 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 

ed, although It was several days before she 
was able to be removed. The matter vomited 
was found to be a strong solution of cocculus 
indlcus. The publican acknowledged that the 
drug had been used by him to bring up his 
ales to a strength to suit the customers. This 
was a noted house for genuine ales and bitter 



iD 



beer. 



Morrlce, In his practical treatise on brewing 
the various sorts of malt liquors, with examples 
of each species, the whole forming a complete 
guide to brewing London porter, gives us one 
receipt out of these for making 89 barrels : 25 
qrs. malt, i cwt. 2 qrs. of hops, 6 lbs. of coccu- 
lus Indlcus, 3 lbs. of Leghorn juice, 4 lbs. of 
porter extract; then he makes "the remaining 
goods Into small beer by adding 3 lbs. of coc- 
culus Indlcus, being ground fine, and 4 lbs. 
of faba amara, or bitter bean." 

Another popular author, to whom we have 
more than once referred, Child, In his work. 
Every Man his Own Brewer, after stating that 
cocculus indlcus, capsicum, and headings are 
used in making porter, says : " However much 
they may surprise, however pernicious or disa- 
greeable they may appear, I have always found 
them requisite in the brewing of porter ; they 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 37 

must invariably be used by those who wish to 
continue the taste, flavor, and appearance." 



BEER. 

In the essay on brewing, published in the 
Library of Useful Knowledge, we find there, 
in the manufacture of beer, sugar, molasses, 
honey, and liquorice are used for malt ; alum, 
opium, gentian, quassia, aloes, cocculus indicus, 
gentian, amara, tobacco, and nux vomica are used 
for hops ; and the last-mentioned are known to 
be highly poisonous. Saltpetre, common salt 
mixed with wheat or bean flour, jalap, the fiery 
liquid called spirit of maranta bruised, green 
copperas, lime, marble-dust, oyster-shells, egg- 
shells, sulphate of lime, hartshorn-shavings, 
nut-galls, and the subcarbonate of potash and 
soda, are used to prevent acidity, etc. It was 
our fortune, some time ago, to be admitted 
behind the scenes, and -witness the modus 
operandi of making wholesome beer and pure 
ale in all its stages, and know whereof we speak 
w^ien we say that to give beer a cauliflower 
head, beer-heading is used, consisting of green 
vitriol, alum, and salt. 

Alum gives likewise a smack of age to beer. 



38 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 

and is penetrating to the palate. To make this 
beer old, add oil of vitriol, and an imitation of 
the age of eighteen months is thus produced 
in an instant. As to the water employed in the 
manufacture of malt liquor, the testimony of 
a brewer in this country gives ground for 
believing there was some foundation in the 
rumor that prevailed a few years ago, that 
water used at one of the largest breweries in 
London was pumped from the Thames at low 
water. At that time, the draining of the 
stables and filth of every kind poured down 
the sewers, and, finally, into the river. And 
that brewery was hence famed for the richness 
of its porter. The brewer says : " In the great 
brewery in which I have for years been em- 
ployed, the pipes which draw the water from 
the river come in just at the place which 
receives the drainings of the horse-stables. 
And there is no such beer in the world as was 
made from it." 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 39 



NATURE OF INGREDIENTS USED 

IN THE MANUFACTURE OF 

INTOXICATING DRINKS. 

COCCULUS INDICUS, OR INDIAN BERRY. 

This article, which is rarely ever used in 
medicine, and of no importance in the arts, is 
extensively used for the purpose of adulterating 
malt liquors. To such an extent is this the case 
that writers on brewing openly acknowledge the 
fact, and give regular formulae for its employ- 
ment; and all recommend it on the ground 
that it increases the apparent strength of the 
beer, and improves its intoxicating quality. 

It is a small, rough, and black-looking berry, 
of a very bitter taste and an intoxicating quality. 
In doses of two or three grains, it will produce 
nausea, vomiting, and alarming prostration. 
In ten or twelve grain doses, it kills strong dogs 
by tetanic spasms and convulsions ; and in still 
larger doses, death, both in man and animals, is 
speedily produced. 

In India, it is employed by the Nagus and 
other Indian tribes to poison the water in 



40 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 

wells and tanks, to impede the progress of an 
invading army, and also to poison the weapons 
used in warfare. 

FOXGLOVE 

is a plant with large purple flowers, possessing 
an intensely bitter, nauseous taste. It is a vio- 
lent purgative and emetic ; produces languor, 
giddiness, and even death. It is a poison, and 
is used on account of the bitter and intoxicatine: 
qualities it imparts to the liquor with whicli it is 
mixed. 

GREEN COPPERAS, 

a mineral substance obtained from iron, is 
much used to give the porter a frothy top. 
Hartshorn-shavings are the horns of the com- 
mon male deer rasped or scraped down. They 
are then boiled in the worts of ale, and give 
out a substance of a thickish nature like jelly, 
which is said to prevent intoxicating liquor from 
becoming sour. 

HENBANE. 

A plant of a poisonous nature, bearing a 
close resemblance to the narcotic poison 
opium. It produces intoxication, delirium, 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 4I 

nausea, vomiting, feverishness, and death, and 
appears chiefly to be used to increase the in- 
toxicating effects of liquors. Grains of para- 
dise are also largely used. They are also 
narcotic, causing, when taken in a state of 
infusion, sickness, general feeling of distress, 
and finally stupor, tremor, or general nervous 
prostration. 

JALAP. 

The root of a sort of convolvulus, brought 
from the neighborhood of Xalapa, Mexico. It 
is used as a powerful purgative in medicine. 
Its taste is extremely nauseous, and is used to 
prevent intoxicating liquor from souring, and to 
counteract the binding tendency of some of the 
other ingredients employed by the brewer. 



LIME. 

An earthy substance, of a white color. It 
has a hot, burning taste, and in some measure 
corrodes and destroys the texture of those 
animal substances with which it comes into 
contact. 



42 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS, 

MULTUM 

is a mixture of opium and other ingredients, 
prepared by chemists for the brewer, and used 
by him to create the intoxicating quaHties of the 
liquor. It is of a highly poisonous nature, and 
doubtless contributes to the fatal effects of 
that liquor. 

NUT-GALLS 

are excrescences produced by the attacks of a 
small insect on the tender shoots of a tree 
which grows in Asia, Syria, and Persia. They 
have a very bitter taste, and are used to color or 
fire the liquor. 

NUX VOMICA 

is the powdered fruit of the strychnus nux 
vomica. Its name suffices to characterize it. It 
is a violent narcotic, acrid poison, and is exten- 
sively used in the manufacture of intoxicating 
liquors. It is such a dangerous poison that 
medical men rarely prescribe it. 

OPIUM 

is the thickened juice of the white poppy, 
which grows most abundantly in India. It is 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORF. 43 

the most destructive of narcotic poisons, and it 
is the most intoxicating. It is largely used in 
the manufacture of intoxicating liquors, because 
its very nature is to yield a larger quantity of 
intoxicating matter than any other beverage. 

OIL OF VITRIOL, 

or sulphuric acid, is a mineral poison of an 
awfully burning nature. It destroys every 
thing it comes in contact with. It is used by 
brewers to increase the heating qualities of their 
liquors. 

POTASH 

derives its name from ashes and the pots in 
which it is prepared. It Is made from vegetables 
mixed with quicklime, boiled down in pots and 
burnt, the ashes remaining after the burning 
being potash. 

QUASSIA 

is the name of a tree which grows In America 
and the West-Indies. Both the wood and the 
fruit are of an intensely bitter taste. It is used 
by brewers instead of hops. 



44 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS 

TOBACCO 

is a narcotic poison of a bitter, acrid taste. 
When it is distilled, it yields an essential oil of 
a most violent and destructive nature. 

WORMWOOD 

is a plant or flower with downy leaves and 
small round-headed flowers. The seed of this 
plant has bitter and stimulating properties. 

In view of the facts here presented, is it not 
a monstrous absurdity to style liquors composed 
of such vile abominations, healthful beverages ? 
And is it not sheer blasphemy to speak of 
protecting a traffic whose whole history is one 
gigantic fraud ? 

Talk of pure liquors ! men know not what 
they say. The purest of the manufacturers' 
liquors is alcoholic, and as such is deadly in 
its effects. 

We solemnly aver that if ever there was a 
State-prison offense, it is that of putting into 
the market liquors manufactured out of articles 
infernal in their character, and labeling thenj 
as pure and wholesome. And we firmly believe 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS, 45 

that the day is coming when it will be so 
regarded ; when the traffic in intoxicating 
liquors will be put under the law, and men will 
be held responsible for every infringement 
thereof And what shall we say of the whole- 
sale prescription of such liquors by so many 
medical men ? 



